Digital Commons Network^™

Examining Bias In Fingerprint Examination, Maidge Westrick

Honors Projects

The field of fingerprint examination within forensic science is vulnerable to error due to bias. The case that really highlighted this issue was the case of the Madrid bombing in 2004, where Brandon Mayfield was falsely convicted based on a false positive fingerprint identification. The 2009 NAS report questions the validity of the latent fingerprint examination field, pointing out the need for more objective criteria for comparisons and for studies on bias and error in this field. I plan to look into different studies to see if the issues with bias have been improved since the 2009 NAS report. I …

Dr. Paul Fessler And Donald Roth, Sarah Moss

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Decade Of Diligence, Sarah Moss

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Family Drug Courts, Jacob Ashley

Critical Questions

Surprisingly few people know very much about the role of family drug courts. These courts are intimately involved with issues related to criminal justice, child welfare, drug abuse, mental health, and rehabilitation. The work of family drug courts has been shown to be highly effective in supporting drug rehabilitation and family reunification.

Spartan Daily, April 27, 2023, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2023

Volume 160, Issue 37

Ud Mock Trial Student Attorney Achieves Only Perfect Score In The Nation, Lucy Waskiewicz

College of Arts and Sciences Newsroom

University of Dayton senior Arabella Loera topped more than 7,300 mock trial students at the American Mock Trial Association’s regional and national tournaments.

Vista: April 27, 2023, University Of San Diego

USD Vista (1965-)

No abstract provided.

Mentally Ill Offenders And Recidivism Rates, Makenzie Ward

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Background Information In Indiana, individuals with mental illnesses are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. Rather than being evaluated and treated in a proper facility, such as public psychiatric hospitals, offenders are referred to jails and prisons. According to Ray, Sapp, et.al. (2016), “Studies have found the rate of serious mental illness in jail and prison ranges from 14 to 16 percent, a rate three to five times greater than the proportion of serious mental illness in the greater population.” Mentally ill offenders that are not receiving adequate representation while incarcerated are not getting access to resources needed once …

2023-April-27-Exceptional In Their Fields. Distinguished At Etsu., University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY (April 27, 2023) – Eleven members of the Class of 2023 at East Tennessee State University will be inducted into the 1911 Society. Named in commemoration of the year ETSU was founded, the organization honors the university’s most notable graduates from undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. The 1911 Society recognizes students who have distinguished themselves among all graduates for academic excellence, service and leadership.

“For more than a century, ETSU has carried forth a mission to improve the quality of life for the people of this region,” said ETSU President Dr. Brian Noland. “The 1911 Society is …

A More Perfect Union For Whom?, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Faculty Scholarship

Amending the federal Constitution has been instrumental in creating and developing the North American constitutional project. The difficult process embedded in Article V has been used by “The People” to expand rights and democracy, fix procedural deficiencies, and even overturn Supreme Court precedent. Yet, it is no secret that the amendment process has fallen to the wayside and that a constitutional amendment in our present age of extreme political polarization feels impossible.

Our nation’s history suggests otherwise. In John F. Kowal and Wilfred U. Codrington III’s exciting and inspirational new book, they explain that interest in constitutional amendments has coincided …

A More Perfect Union For Whom?, Emmanuel Hiram Arnaud

Articles

Amending the federal Constitution has been instrumental in creating and developing the North American constitutional project. The difficult process embedded in Article V has been used by “The People” to expand rights and democracy, fix procedural deficiencies, and even overturn Supreme Court precedent. Yet, it is no secret that the amendment process has fallen to the wayside and that a constitutional amendment in our present age of extreme political polarization feels impossible.

Our nation’s history suggests otherwise. In John F. Kowal and Wilfred U. Codrington III’s exciting and inspirational new book, they explain that interest in constitutional amendments has coincided …

Justifying Antipathy?: Examining Racialized Perceptions Of Incarceration And Support For Mental Healthcare In Prisons, Jared Brassil

Honors Theses

The current U.S. criminal justice system has a disproportionate number of people suffering from mental illness. Additionally, many of these prisons not only lack the ability to properly treat these individuals, but in some cases may even worsen the problem. Public support, and importantly whom the public thinks the prototypical prisoner is, is important to know when advocating for reform. This research aims to investigate whether or not racialized perceptions of the U.S. criminal justice system impact support for mental healthcare reform in prisons. Given the exploratory nature of this work, potentially relevant individual difference variables are also investigated. An …

Socialist Legality On Trial: The Purge Of The Ukrainian Nkvd, 1938-1943, Reide Petty

Honors Theses

In the winter of 1938, Grigorii Iufa was put on trial in a Soviet court for the violation of socialist legality, a charge alleging that he had manipulated Soviet legal processes and undermined the rule of law during his work. Prior to his arrest, Iufa had worked in the Moldavian division of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s state security agency. In that capacity, he had played a significant role in the Great Terror, which was a highly concentrated campaign of mass violence conducted by the Soviet Union between 1937-1938 against perceived enemies among its own citizenry. This campaign primarily consisted …

Bruce Bryant, Released After 30 Years In Prison With The Help Of The Perlmutter Center For Legal Justice At Cardozo Law, Visits And Thanks Cardozo Students, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Cardozo News 2023

In an emotional visit to the Cardozo Law campus on April 26, two days after his release from prison, Bruce Bryant thanked students from The Perlmutter Forensic Science Freedom Field Clinic who helped him win clemency.

A round of applause echoed through the hallway as he arrived with Josh Dubin, the executive director of The Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law.

Unopposed Brief Amicus Curiae Of Clear, The Jewish Coalition For Religious Liberty, And The Sikh Coalition In Support Of Appellant, Stephanie Hall Barclay, Francesca Matozzo

Court Briefs

No. 23-131
Franklin Loving v. Robert Morton

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 3:20-cv-11135

From the Summary of Argument

The Second Circuit should re-examine its precedent to allow for monetary damages for individual-capacity suits under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) for three reasons. First, RLUIPA’s text follows the same approach as 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and should be interpreted to afford the same types of broad remedies. Before Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), reduced the availability of free exercise claims, free …

An Experiment On Why You Are Vulnerable To Online Phishing Scams, Madeline Moran, Anna Hart

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

Phishing is a cyber-attack that uses deception to obtain personal identifiable information from individuals or corporations. These attacks are disguised as trustworthy sources, such as a bank, and convey an urgent situation that the recipient ‘must’ address thorough providing PII. Recipients are told to click on a link that provides a fraudulent website to enter PII and/or download malicious malware. Phishing attacks were the number one reported internet scam in 2022 and accounted for $52 million reported loss [1]. The total amount lost to these scams increased by 48% [1] suggesting that scammers are adapting their phishing scams to increase …

A Comparative Analysis Of The United States' Prison System, Samantha Barone

Academic Festival

The prison systems of the United States, Norway, and Germany all employ different approaches, ranging from rehabilitation-focused to punishment-focused. The United States has a more punishment focused approach and has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Norway and Germany employ approaches that are more rooted in rehabilitation and work to help reintegrate inmates back into society. It would be beneficial for the United States to employ a more rehabilitative approach, in order to improve prisoner welfare and the economy.

Legislating Cybercrime: Why Stronger Legislation Is Required Considering The Psychology Of Computer Users, Danielle Leblanc

Academic Festival

One of the most neglected fields of modern day crime in terms of legislation is that of cybercrime, which has been expanding in both popularity and capability in recent years. Currently, cybercrime is prosecuted using pre-existing legislation, however there are a multitude of factors that differentiate cybercrime as a distinct subsect of crime. These differences include the uniquely developed psychology of computer users, the primarily independent financial motivation of the crimes, and the lack of specific legislation regarding cybercrime. Even though writing new legislation may not appear to be an incredibly challenging feat, a negative public opinion, the technological understanding …

The Emergence Of Crisis Services Within Police Departments, Daria Komeza

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

I am completing my internship at Arlington Heights Police Department with their Police Crisis Worker. Crisis Services are in higher demand and being implemented in more police departments and federal agencies than ever before. This program holds many roles, but one of the most crucial is having direct interactions with those facing obstacles due to mental health illnesses. I hope this presentation helps to spread awareness about the rise of mental health calls, as well as what this rapidly growing field of Crisis Services provides to the communities and why it should be implemented in all departments.

The Criminalization Of Homelessness In Chicago, Emily Porter

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

Community organizations report that Chicago was experiencing a rise in homelessness before the global pandemic, which pushed more people into a state of homelessness. City leaders admit to needing more resources to address the larger number of people living on the street. History, however, shows that cities often turn towards policies the criminalize the homeless when the “problem” becomes more visible, overwhelming public spaces and spreading into wealthier spaces thereby threatening local revenues and electoral security of officials. In this study, we will examine the occurrence of these types of crime and spatial differences in the communities where these “crimes'' …

Municipal Failures, Nancy Leong

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Calls for reforming the civil rights enforcement regime often focus on individual government officers. Recent years have brought demands to abolish qualified immunity—a defense that protects individual officers from liability so long as they did not violate clearly established law—and to end indemnification—a practice in which government employers satisfy judgments against their employees.

This Article focuses instead on liability directly against municipalities and draws attention to a promising and underused avenue for recovery: the theory of municipal failure to supervise. It presents two original data sets—one including every municipal liability case decided in 2019, and the other including every case …

Alex Asuquo Ita V. Attorney General United States Of America

2023 Decisions

Agency

Usa V. Evans Santos Diaz

2023 Decisions

USDC for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

The Role Of Organized Psychology In Inspiring Hope And Preventing Hate Victimization: Recommendations From A South African Hate And Bias Monitoring Initiative, Hanlie Van Wyk, Juan A. Nel

Journal of Hate Studies

Psychology must have as its primary focus the well-being of humans, communities, and societies and cannot be detached from – or even neutral about – our social or political systems. For those who are impacted by hate, the focus on their well-being has never mattered more. In South Africa, which is the focal point of our research, and the world, hate victimization targeting people based on identity factors like race, nationality, religion, and sexual orientation is becoming more prevalent. Given the menacing intensification of hate, how is psychology as a profession, science, and discipline keeping the pulse of society at …

Declaration Of Catherine Smith: Navahine V. Dept. Of Transportation, State Of Hawai’I, Catherine Smith

Scholarly Articles

I submit this expert declaration in support of the children’s motion to maintain their September 2023 trial date so they can have their urgent constitutional rights case involving a life-sustaining climate system accorded the legal prioritization it deserves. Each day that passes without redress not only means an infringement on children’s rights but also impacts their health, safety, well-being, and the cultural lifeways and traditions of Native Hawaiian children. These harms are cumulative and compounding for the duration of the plaintiffs’ childhoods as they mature into adults. And many of the plaintiffs’ climate change-induced injuries are irreversible.

Symposium Transcript

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Call For Change: Doing More To Protect Black And Brown Victims Of Domestic Violence, Kiana Gilcrist

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Domestic violence (“DV”) disproportionately affects Black and Brown
women. This article examines the tense history of law enforcement
engagement with minority groups, which has caused a strain on that
relationship, leaving minority groups more likely to choose to stay in their
DV situations than seek out law enforcement help. The divide still impacts
these groups today. Additionally, the article highlights several organizations
that have formed to address the needs of minority individuals. Other
organizations have been around, but their ties to law enforcement create an
added barrier for Black and Brown women seeking protection. The article
concludes by briefly examining …

On Liberation Psychology, Hate, Hope, And Healing, Aaron Edwards

Journal of Hate Studies

Entering the third year of the COVID-19 era, the United States faces myriad problems with hate speech, misinformation, racial and politically based violence, and deep-rooted institutional abuses. Oppression of minorities making up the majority of the population contributes to mood disorders such as anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. The problem of hate has been an active study by psychologists since World War II, but as of yet publications uniting interdisciplinary hate studies and community psychology are sparse compared to other interests. This essay addresses one such theory, liberation psychology, and how its approach may guide clinicians and institutions to a …

Faculty Senate Agenda, Georgia Southern University, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Agendas

No abstract provided.

Displacement And Replacement: The Political History Of David Duke, Patrick Buchanan, And Racial Resentment, Dylan Weir

Journal of Hate Studies

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, David Duke and Patrick Buchanan drew on long-running discourses about White replacement and displacement in their political campaigns. Duke, former leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, used White displacement fears to earn elected office in the Louisiana state legislature. He then ran for governor, senator, and president, but was thwarted in these campaigns partly thanks to Black voters. Duke’s presidential ambitions were also undercut by the journalist and television personality Patrick Buchanan, who coopted Duke’s message to seize his base. Despite trying several times, however, Buchanan was also unable to …